# Diotima — Dialogues character guide

> Diotima in Dialogues by Plato.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Diotima of Mantineia

**First appearance:** 0031-symposium

## Snapshot

A priestess from Mantineia who taught Socrates the mysteries of love, insisting that eros is not a god but a daimon mediating between mortal and divine.

## Who they are

Diotima appears in the Symposium only through Socrates' recollection, yet her voice reshapes the entire dialogue, replacing the flattery of lovers with a ladder of ascent from beautiful bodies to Beauty itself. She is a woman speaking with authority in a room of men, and her teaching is as demanding as it is strange: love is lack, pregnancy, and the desire to give birth in beauty. She matters because she gives Socrates the argument that turns a drinking party's speeches about love into a philosophical ascent toward what truly is.

## In the story

### [Symposium](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/dialogues_se/chapters/symposium)

Socrates' teacher on love, though not present at the banquet.

### [Symposium](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/dialogues_se/chapters/symposium)

Teaches Socrates about love as the desire for immortality through generation and the pursuit of the good.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/dialogues_se/characters/diotima
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/dialogues_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/dialogues_se/characters